A trader at this year's Glastonbury Festival was almost sent back home to Keynsham after a rain storm on Monday night broke his marquee. Iain Aitchison, who runs Longwell Records, had to put messages out on his social media pages to plead for help or else they would have to pack up shop and wouldn't be able to stay at Glastonbury this weekend.
Sharing a photo of the white marquee, which had bowed beyond repair due to heavy rain, Iain asked if anyone out there could help by lending him a replacement for the weekend. The post, which has since been taken down, showed boxes of his stock underneath the broken marquee and comments were quick to flood in, with people locally and heading to the festival offering their help.
Some offered to go shopping for a replacement marquee for him, or to order and collect gazebos and tents from an Amazon collection locker. In the end, Iain shared an update to his Twitter page. He said: "Massive thank you to everyone who retweeted our plight today. It don't look pretty but we have our gorgeous Glasto neighbours' back up tent plus some local tarp... The Glasto spirit is definitely here."
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This morning (June 21) on the first day of the festival, Iain spoke with James Hanson on BBC Radio Bristol to tell the story in full. He said: "It was pretty heart-breaking because at one stage we were on our way back to Keynsham.
"There was a bit of a storm overnight and it took apart our marquee basically. It collapsed, almost hitting my mate [whose tent was inside].
"Loads of tweets went out and I was so grateful. We had about 1,000 tweets through offering help. But two proper Glastonbury-style hippies either side of us where we are came up with some sort of mouldy old tent they found in the back of their wagon and we patched it up with some tarpaulin and here we go - we're going to be operating from today!"
Iain said some of his favourite aspects of Glastonbury Festival include the different types of people who attend, as well as the music, the history and the "weird, wacky spiritual side of it". He added that he got to see 10 acts last year, including Amyl and the Sniffers, but loves running the stall and, this year, he's looking forward to watching Elton John among others.
Glastonbury Festival kicks off today. The gates have already opened and people are making their way in as we write this.
